President Trump voiced frustration with his administration for targeting highly skilled workers in his immigration crackdown, revealing stark differences with Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and domestic policy architect, on immigration.
Mr. Trump said in an Oval Office interview with New York Times reporters that he was “not happy” about a September raid that detained 475 workers, mostly from South Korean, who were building a Hyundai plant in Georgia. Mr. Trump argued that foreigners attempting to expand U.S. operations in globally competitive sectors would be dissuaded by such hostile treatment. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 475 people in the raid.
“You have to allow them to bring some of their experts with them or they’re never going to be able to open their plant or factory,” he said of foreign companies in specialized industries that were looking to operate in the United States.
“They brought people that make batteries,” he added about the Hyundai raid. “And those people would have trained our people how to make batteries, and at some point they would have gone back because they want to go back to their country.”
While Mr. Trump presented his views as business-minded pragmatism, they contrasted sharply with those espoused by Mr. Miller, who has called for limiting immigration across the board, with few exceptions for highly skilled workers in competitive sectors.
When asked if that meant he disagreed with Mr. Miller, Mr. Trump did not criticize his aide personally, calling Mr. Miller “a very strong voice” in his administration.
“He feels that people who come into our country should be able to love our county and be able to contribute,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Miller, skipping over Mr. Miller’s hard-line approach to immigrants, including naturalized citizens, and their children.
While much of Mr. Miller’s efforts have focused on deporting immigrants without legal authorization to be in the United States, he also has pushed for the Trump administration to significantly limit the distribution of skilled worker visas and green cards, arguing they pose a threat to U.S.-born workers.
Earlier this year, Mr. Miller also set a target of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, which some have cited as a factor in driving I.C.E. to conduct large-scale workplace raids like the one that rounded up the Hyundai workers in Georgia.
Karoun Demirjian is a breaking news reporter for The Times.
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